How to Easily Fix 500 Internal Server Error in WordPress

You shouldn’t panic when you see the internal server error on your WordPress site. It doesn’t matter if your site is hosted on 000webhost free web hosting or any other hosting provider.

Even though this error doesn’t tell you what’s wrong, you can easily fix this error with the solutions in this post.

Note:Before trying these solutions, we highly recommend backing up your WordPress site just to be on the safe side should anything go wrong.

Keeping backups is of great importance, and it’s a good habit to form. By the way, if you experience the 500 internal server error (or any other, for example, 502 Bad Gateway) after making recent changes to your site, you can simply restore a backup you created prior to the changes.

Causes of 500 Internal Server Error in WordPress

The WordPress 500 internal server error in WordPress can be caused by a number of issues such as:

Corrupted .htaccess file

PHP memory limit issues

Problematic plugin(s)

Corrupted WordPress core files

Now, let’s go over these causes one by one and outline a solution for each.

Corrupted .htaccess File

More often than not, a corrupted .htaccess file throws the internal server error in your face.

.htaccess (short for Hypertext Access) is a configuration file used by your web server to control the directory it lives in (in this case your WordPress directory) and all sub-directories under that directory.

To determine if a corrupted .htaccess file is the cause of the WordPress 500 internal server error on your site, we begin the diagnosis by renaming your existing .htaccess file.

Renaming .htaccess

Login to your WordPress directory (the folder where your site lives) using FTP. You’ll know you are in the right directory if you see sub-folders such as wp-content, wp-includes and wp-admin:

In most hosting environments, your WordPress directory site is usually the Home or Public_html directory. If you installed WordPress on a sub-domain such as yoursite.com/someurl, your WordPress directory is someurl.

Increasing your PHP memory limit might fix the WordPress 500 internal server error, but it’s just a temporary fix since it means something on your site is eating up your server resources. For a complete diagnosis, you might need to dig into your error logs.

But even if increasing PHP memory limits doesn’t fix this error, it is time to check whether the problem lies in your plugins.

Problematic Plugin(s)

The WordPress 500 internal server error can be the result of a faulty plugin or two conflicting plugins. To tell if a plugin is the root of the error, you need to deactivate all of them first.

Login to the WordPress directory. Open the wp-content folder and locate the plugins folder:

Rename the folder to something like plugins_old to deactivate all plugins at once. Don’t worry, you won’t break your site or lose any plugin.

Reload your site to see if this solution fixes the internal server error. If so, it’s time to eliminate the problematic plugin.

Rename plugins_old back to plugins and login to your WordPress admin dashboard. Next, activate your plugins one by one while refreshing your site each time until the error reappears.

If you re-activate a plugin and the internal server error reappears, it means the last plugin is the culprit. Just delete the responsible plugin via FTP and notify the developer of the error.

Corrupted WordPress Core

Now if all the other solutions fail, perhaps the 500 internal server error in WordPress is caused by corrupted WordPress core files.

While this is rarely the case, things break all the time. To repair your WordPress core files, you must upload fresh versions of wp-admin and wp-includes folders.

Now, reload your site to trigger the error. Open your WordPress directory, navigate to the wp-content folder and open debug.log. If you have a developer friend, they can help you to decipher the errors.

We can also lend a hand whenever you’re stuck, so don’t hesitate asking your questions in the comment section.

Conclusion

The WordPress 500 internal server error is mainly the result of a bad .htaccess file or exhausting your PHP memory limit. All the same, fixing this error is as simple as A, B, C, which means you needn’t panic whenever you encounter this error.

Did any of the above solutions fix the 500 internal server error for you? If so, please let us know in the comment section.

Have you ever seen the 500 internal server error in the past? How did you fix it? Please share your fix with us in the comment section below.

I don’t understand exactly what you mean by a hardware issue? Do you mean an issue with your server or your computer? I can see how a hardware problem with your web server could lead to the 500 Internal Server error, simply because the error mostly happens on the web server. Some users have experienced the 500 Internal Server error because of malware or virus infection on their computers, so you need to ensure you have the latest version of your operating system and a great antivirus program such as ESET Nod32. Other than that, I can’t think of any other thing that could cause the error. Regardless, please reply to this comment with more details and we will be more than glad to help you. Cheers!

In the Debugging WordPress section, the line that says ‘WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY’ ends with an apostrophe instead of a semi-colon. If someone copies and pastes the code, they will get a white screen. Other than that, you wrote a very good article!

I did everything as mentioned in the post. But still no luck. As soon as I change my website’s URLs to permalink structure, any of the posts page throws 500 internal error. Only the home page shows up.

Thanks a lot! This 500 error set me back an hour, but it was finally the plugins part that brought everything back. However, I went one-by-one activating the plugins, and when they were all back on, it didn’t break my site again?

Should I be concerned? Everything seems to be working ok, but I just don’t understand what cog threw everything out of whack.

I have something very strange and cant figure it out. All is fine, then upon a page refresh form just editing text, i get 500 error. It happens on chrome. Sometimes only one chrome profile (user), but not firefox or another profile. I’ve been through all of my chrome settings. I would imagine something in the server is seeing the chrome user profile as not having permission? Very confused. If it was corrupted wordpress file or plugin conflict i would think i would have same issue across different browsers on the same machine. Any thoughts?

FYI, i’ve replaced hta access file a few times, resolves then just happens all over again a day later after all being fine for hours.

Thanks you very much Freddy, for sharing this informative blog post about the simple ways to easily fix 500 internal server error in WordPress powered websites or blogs. Your blog is really very helpful for me as-well-as for anyone who is facing problem with server issues on their web hosting. Keep up the great work!